Lots and lots of clouds

Stephen Fry explains the principles of cloud computing and recommends a few services
Clever man Stephen Fry, perhaps he could write a piece on OpenID next.

Richard Stallman on Cloud Computing: “Stupidity” [autonomo.us]
“I’m very supportive of [Stallman’s] concern about cloud computing, and I agree that it’s something that the Free Software and Free Culture communities need to address. But in rejecting all network computing, I think RMS has thrown out the baby with the bathwater.”

Can’t Open Your E-Mailbox? Good Luck [NYTimes.com]
Amidst all the hype around cloud computing, The New York Times points out that if Google locks down your Gmail login for whatever reason (like someone tried the wrong password too many times), you’re basically screwed.

Some lovely visualisations, one odd one

Worldmapper: The world as you’ve never seen it before
Interesting collection of maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest. There are now nearly 600 maps.

AirTraffic Worldwide [YouTube]
A map of the world showing a simulation of all of the air traffic in a 24-hour period

Flickr Panda – strange, very strange
Panda vomiting photos – why the Panda? Who knows. Something to do with this.

Height – the observable universe from top to bottom [xkcd]
I don’t normally link to xkcd because, to be honest, I would simply be linking to every addition. But this one is particularly good.

Listen to TimBL: Link your Data, give it context

Is Linking to Yourself the Future of the Web? [O’Reilly Radar]
“Follow Jay’s link and you come to a story that indeed doesn’t have any outbound links, except to other Times stories. Now, I understand the value of linking to other articles on your own site — everyone does it — but to do so exclusively is a small tear in the fabric of the web, a small tear that will grow much larger if it remains unchecked.”

…and listen to Martin: don’t fall for BDUF

‘Requirement’ is inherently waterfallish. Agile methods violate this underlying assumption by intending to discover the ‘requirements’ during construction and after delivery. [martinfowler.com]
Everyone knows how big the difference is between what people say they want and what people actually need and use. By watching what people actually do with your application, you can find out what actually happens with the software – which can give you much more direct information than other sources. As a result I think more teams should consider adding this approach to their toolkit.